The DeLorean returns - Back to The Future!

This is a discussion on The DeLorean returns - Back to The Future! within The International Automotive Scene, part of the BHP Worldwide category; Originally Posted by GTO
Some parts of history should stay just there! I am not too excited about DeLorean's being ...

Some parts of history should stay just there! I am not too excited about DeLorean's being available again. What did the car offer in the 80's? Lacklustre performance, poor fit & finish and poor reliability. What will a car, that was subpar in the 80's, offer in 2008 for a whopping $60,000! Its not like it has any heritage either. That kind of money can buy you a 'Vette, a Porsche, a used Ferrari...

Again, some things are best left in the past.

For me, the only reason the Delorean should come back is because it looked like nothing ever produced before. Even now, 30 years later, except the Mercedes C111 concept, I haven't found a car which looks like the DMC 12.

Quote:

Originally Posted by punterccrx8s

The article came in this months issue of top gear magazine.Nice car.

I had that issue in my archives, never paid much attention to it. Yesterday was cleaning up my auto mag collection. That issue resurfaced, and I happened to read the article with interest.

In the evening, went to the Delorean site. The stock car in LHD, Auto transmission form costs USD 57K. But there was a full customization option. You could choose RHD, Manual transmission, upgraded ICE and a whole list of modern toys.

When I finished, my total bill came to USD76K, or about 35 lakh rupees. Obviously I was just assing around. I left the site and forgot about it.

Next morning, I was surprised to find a mail from their VP sales. It contained a letter saying thank you for expressing interest in the Delorean. It also contained a full brochure of the car, and a list of pre-owned Deloreans that I could be interested to look at.

Didn't know about that a thread in team-bhp existed about DeLorean.
Discovered about the texas build DMC only an year ago while surfing the net.
Like all others , Back to the Future introduced me to the DMC and am still mesmerised by the unique design.
Don't care about the underpinnings, the long flat boxy hood, aluminium colour, the seating position with a high central tunnel all make me go ga-ga.

Looks like a recent Bill will allow the DMC corp to bring back DeLorean DMC-12 with updated parts.

Quote:

DeLorean sports cars going back into production

DETROIT — DeLorean Motor is resurrecting the past with plans to build replicas of the famed car from the Back to the Future movies of the 1980s.

News reports out of Humble, Texas, say the automaker plans to make about 300 replicas of the 1982 DeLorean that has not been in production for 34 years. The company has remained in business by refurbishing old DeLoreans — about 9,000 were originally sold — for enthusiasts.

“It’s fantastic. It is a game-changer for us. We’ve been wanting this to happen,” DeLorean CEO Stephen Wynne told TV station KPRC2 in Houston, saying it is possible under a new low-volume manufacturing bill approved by the federal government. “That was a green light to go back into production.”

Wynne said he wants to build about four cars a month.

Refurbished DeLoreans cost $45,000 to $55,000. The replicas will cost closer to $100,000 when they go on sale in early 2017.

The original automaker was formed in 1975 by John DeLorean and was made famous by its one model: the DeLorean DMC-12 sports car with gull-wing doors. In the Back to the Future movies, it was able to travel through time via the flux capacitor.

The company went bankrupt in 1982, despite John DeLorean's attempt to save it with money from drug trafficking. The suspect transaction was caught on film, but DeLorean was acquitted of the charges.

In 1995, mechanic Stephen Wynne started a new company with the DeLorean Motor name, and he purchased the parts and logo of the original company. His company near Houston restores the original cars, and he has a small number of authorized dealerships.

The DeLorean Is Coming Back Thanks To This New Law, Will Have 300-400 HP
The new DMC-12s are expected to cost around $100,000, and should have modernized electronics and all the things you really wouldn’t want to keep from a 1980s car.

The poor guy answering their phones today sounded pretty exasperated, tired of dealing with calls all day. That’s probably good news for the company, but I think he deserves Friday off.

UPDATE: I was finally able to talk to James Espey, the VP of the company, and while he couldn’t come out and tell me exactly what the new drivetrain would be, I did get a few good details:

• While GM is an engine option, they’re not the only ones. They’re looking at three possible suppliers, two domestic, one foreign. There’s one favorite though, and the engine that’s the frontrunner is a normally-aspirated V6 making between 300-400 HP. This seems to be the non-American company, and while the company wouldn’t comment, it may well be Japanese. It may be Toyota, but that’s just a guess.

Lotus already buys the Camry’s V6, right? They cram that into some tight areas. That 3.5-liter 2GR-FSE V6 used in the Lexus IS makes over 300 HP now; maybe that one?

• The center stack, HVAC, and some other ancillaries will be from the current-favorite supplier.

• Because it’s a rear-engine configuration, a transaxle setup will be used, though they would not tell me that supplier just yet.

• The new DeLorean will have bigger wheels, bigger brakes, and shocks from “a famous German supplier.” Bilstein?

I also read about the return of this yesteryear icon on Jalopnik. The same article has been quoted above. For me, it reminds me when I had first seen this beautiful car on the 'Back To The Future' movie series and was in love with style of the car. At that time, there was no issues of power, torque etc to confuse me, just the shape and the gull-wing doors were enough to drool over.

As posted above, if re-incarnated, it will obviously be built to today's standards, hopefully retaining its historic styling bits. Maybe the 'Flux Capacitor' can be omitted.